


Ils Sont Féroces

by Order_Of_The_Forks



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: implied anatole, implied natasha, no fedya up in here, this isn't explicitly anatole/dolokhov but you could read it that way (i did), yeah i call him dolokhov what are you gonna do about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 06:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21315961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Order_Of_The_Forks/pseuds/Order_Of_The_Forks
Summary: Dolokhov meets with Marya to deal with some loose threads in regards to Anatole and Natasha's affair.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Ils Sont Féroces

One snowy Sunday, during the doldrums between morning and afternoon, after ladies had changed from their conservative church dresses to low-necked, shimmering tea dresses but before people had left for their respective events of the day, Fedya Dolokhov walked to Marya Dmitrievna’s estate with a bundle of papers in the breast pocket of his fine uniform coat and a loaded gun strapped to his waist. He had no intention of using the gun; it was purely a prop, an accessory to the militant persona of dress and behavior that Dolokhov liked to emulate at times when he felt as though his mask of strength was slipping. It rarely worked, but on the rare occasions it did he was a formidable character. Two people had experienced the intensity of the moments where the line between pageantry and reality thinned: his calm, military brutality was the last thing the Shah’s brother had seen and similarly, Anatole Kuragin had experienced the full iciness of his stoic ferocity that night in the troika as they rocketed down Nikitsky Boulevard towards Natalya Rostova.

No, Dolokhov had no intention of firing the gun. The papers, on the other hand, tucked against his chest so close they rustled with every beat of his heart, burned like a coal straight through his linen shirt until it nestled itself in his flesh and smoldered away there like a forgotten bullet.

Winter in Moscow was no ordinary affair. It had snowed the night of the abduction, Dolokhov remembered. He had worn two coats and him and Anatole had sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the troika, all pretenses forgotten in an effort to retain heat in the frigid carriage, as the only noises around them were the clattering of the horses’ hooves and Anatole’s chattering teeth. As he waited by the gate for Anatole to return with his bride, all that could be heard was the soft sound of snow falling on the cobblestones beneath his feet.

It had snowed then, and it had snowed before, and it would snow many times more before the winter had run its course. One day, some months in the future, Dolokhov would walk by the house and see that the snow gathered on its roof had begun to melt, pouring down the vine-encrusted walls in rivulets, still cold to the touch. But today was not that day.

It was a bright, sunny morning, and although the sun blinded Dolokhov it did nothing to alleviate the cold. His breath billowed out before him like smoke from a rich man’s pipe. As he made his way down the boulevard, snow sticking to the toes of his boots, Marya’s estate loomed before him like a sleeping giant. The house looked drowsy, lace curtains pulled across the windows and the inside lit only by the winter sun. 

Dolokhov knocked twice before the door opened. Any other host would not have kept a guest waiting at the door for so long, but Marya was not most hosts. Even the way the door swung open was imposing; a rush of air, somehow cooler than the Moscow winter outside, made a home on Dolokhov’s face, where he became suddenly aware of the tingling in his nose and the color of his cheeks, flushed red from the cold. It was doubtless that he was far from a picture of grace but he had made his sojourn for business, not pleasure. 

“Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova,” Dolokhov said. It was the proper thing to do.

“Captain Dolokhov,” she responded curtly. “I had heard you were in Saint Petersburg with your good-for-nothing friend.” 

Everything about her persona was polite, from her modest gown to the way she held her head- not too high but not too low either, confident without bordering on haughty- but the facade ended at her words. There was an unbridled cruelty in her voice, a simmering hatred that needed to be let out, and Fedya Dolokhov happened to be the poor soul that found himself upon her doorstep. 

“I leave tonight. I came to drop off these,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket for the bundle of papers concealed there. But before he could brandish the bundle before her, she held up one hand and said,

“I’m afraid that won’t be necessary just yet. Join me for tea.”

“I can’t stay long,” Dolokhov said.

“You can stay as long as I can keep you,” she said peremptorily, taking his arm and leading him into the parlor, a large room with a grand fireplace and plush sofas, draped with the gaudiest of old-school decor, what would have been a room of the highest fashion three decades ago. There was already a tea set on the table, and Marya poured two cups with trained ease before pulling out a small flask and adding a splash of its contents to Dolokhov’s and her own. 

“First we drink. Then we talk.”

Dolokhov took an obliging sip. He had never been one to follow orders from anyone without a gun or a uniform, but he knew he was no longer in the back alleyways of Moscow. This was a world of unspoken rules and gestures he had entered as soon as he crossed the threshold, and even Dolokhov was not fool enough to refuse a cup of tea from Marya Dmitrievna. 

Marya drank slowly, as if daring him to break the silence between them. 

There was a small gold-detailed clock on the mantelpiece. When it struck eleven she put down her cup with a soft ‘clink’ and said, “what do you want?”

Dolokhov’s hand once more reached for his breast pocket. “I came to return the countess’s letters.”

“It’s a shame the prince chose not to grace us with his presence.”

“Forgive me for being too forward,” Dolokhov began, his teeth grinding dangerously together, “but I was under the impression that you were the one who ordered him to leave Moscow and to never come within your sight again. Is that true?”

Marya took another demure sip of tea. “It’s what he deserves.”

“No man deserves that.”

“And no woman, no _girl_ deserves to have her life destroyed by some… some lustful wretch.”

A shooting sensation of righteous indignation and guilt and most of all numb melancholy sliced its way through the empty chasm of Dolokhov’s chest. Truthfully, it hurt to hear of his friend spoken of so foully. It was true that there were lines of affection that were blurred in the idiot prince’s mind, but Dolokhov knew that somewhere in that vacuous head Anatole truly believed he had loved Natasha. 

“I don’t think we should speak of a man as if he were a rat,” Dolokhov said, his hand itching to rest imposingly on the gun still holstered on his waist.

“I am an old woman,” Marya bit. “I don’t lie to myself or others. I will call him what he is- a scoundrel.”

What did Marya Dmitrievna have to lie about? She knew nothing of the professions of admiration, the romantic sonatas, the letters composed in Dolokhov’s own hand, paraphrased from the drunken ramblings of a heartsick man. 

“And I will call him Tolya.” Dolokhov stood up from the uncomfortable yet decorative couch and stood before the fireplace, letting his eyes rest on the glass menagerie on the mantelpiece. He picked up a little glass goose with a gilt beak, frozen forever mid-squawk. “We are not so different, you and I.”

He did not see, but he could tell by the rustle of skirts behind him that Marya had stood up in a similar way as he had. “Is that so.”

Not a question, but a statement. A challenge.

Dolokhov did not respond. He didn’t know how to. He didn’t quite know why he had said it in the first place, but although he couldn’t put it into words, he knew it was true. 

“If we are so alike,” Marya said as Dolokhov turned to face her, “shoot that vase.”

There was a large ornamental vase on a small table by the sofa, jade with gold flowers. Dolokhov hesitated.

“You are the one who brought a gun into my house, you wicked man. Use it.”

He pulled the pistol from its holster and held it level to the vase. An easy shot. Like fish in a barrel. The weight of the gun in his hand was familiar and almost comforting, yet he couldn’t get his twitching finger to pull the trigger.

“I will buy another. You cannot buy your dignity back, captain.”

Dolokhov thought of the man he used to be. Clean shaven. Respectable. Now he was standing in Marya Dmitrievna’s parlor with a gun in his hand and a noticeable tremor running up and down his shooting arm, his rough, disheveled beard tinged with grey around his temples. He once was the kind of man who took no orders from anyone, who would fight in back alleys for the fun of it. And looking at who he had become he was ashamed. Dolokhov the pushover, willing to swindle and lie and risk death for what? The wiles of an egotistical prince who wanted nothing more but a pretty new pleasure? 

He used to be fierce, and now, with an opportunity laid before him, he let his arm fall, his gun resting just below his hip. 

“We are not as similar as you think we are,” Marya said, with a businesslike finality. 

Dolokhov could feel a lump in the back of his throat, as if he had swallowed a rock, and he hated himself for it. “I’m not in the mood for playing games today.” He reached into his breast pocket, and as he removed the papers it felt as though he had plucked a splinter from under his skin. “Like I said, I only came to return Natasha’s letters.”

“_Natasha_.” Marya spat. “You are not her friend, captain, and you will address her with propriety.” 

Dolokhov swallowed, feeling the rock grate its way down his throat. “I’m sorry. Take the letters. Please. I have to get to Petersburg, if you weren’t aware.”

Marya gestured widely to the door, her painted lips pressed so tightly together they may as well have not been there at all. 

He found himself in her doorway once again, feeling hollow and cold and needing a drink. 

“If I had been in your position that night,” Marya said, her hand lingering on the doorknob, “I would have put a bullet through his pretty little skull.” 

And she shut the door in his face. 

Dolokhov walked in the direction of his home, where his mother had made a warm, hearty beef stew. He knew that when he returned he would be welcomed by the smells of cooking and steam clouding the windows, but something deep in his gut spurred him past his house and out into the center of Moscow, where people bustled in markets and chattered in small groups and didn’t need to worry about things like honor and love and death. Or perhaps they did. Perhaps Dolokhov’s plight was entirely unindividual. 

Dolokhov was not an individual as he sat in the troika with Anatole, wearing two coats, watching the expanse of taiga pass by, travelling at a fast clip into the endless uncertainty of the future.

**Author's Note:**

> hey hey hey thanks for reading this weird thing  
i've had this written in bits and pieces in my head for a while but hey! now it's on the internet!


End file.
